an enthusiast or devotee: I like jazz, but I'm essentially a classics man.

Slang. male friend; ally: You're my main man.

a term of familiar address to a man; fellow: Now, now, my good man, please calm down.

Slang. a term of familiar address to a man or a woman: Hey, man, take it easy.

one of the pieces used in playing certain games, as chess or checkers.

History/Historical. a liegeman; vassal.

Obsolete. manly character or courage.

the man,Slang.

a person or group asserting authority or power over another, especially in a manner experienced as being oppressive, demeaning, or threatening, as an employer, the police, or a dominating racial group.

a person or group upon whom one is dependent, as the drug supplier for an addict.

Also the Man.

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verb (used with object),manned,man·ning.

to furnish with men, as for service or defense.

to take one's place for service, as at a gun or post: to man the ramparts.

to strengthen, fortify, or brace; steel: to man oneself for the dangers ahead.

Falconry. to accustom (a hawk) to the presence of men.

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interjection

Slang. an expression of surprise, enthusiasm, dismay, or other strong feeling: Man, what a ball game!

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Verb Phrases

man up, Informal. to act in a typically masculine way, as in taking responsibility or making tough decisions: He should man up and meet the challenge.

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Idioms

as one man, in complete agreement or accord; unanimously: They arose as one man to protest the verdict.

be one's own man,

to be free from restrictions, control, or dictatorial influence; be independent: Now that he has a business he is his own man.

to be in complete command of one's faculties: After a refreshing nap he was again his own man.

man and boy, ever since childhood: He's been working that farm, man and boy, for more than 50 years.

man's man, a man who exemplifies masculine qualities.

to a man, with no exception; everyone; all: To a man, the members of the team did their best.

Synonyms

Man,male,gentleman are nouns referring to adult human beings who are biologically male; that is, physiologically equipped to initiate conception but not to bear children. Man is the most general and most commonly used of the three; it can be neutral, lacking either favorable or unfavorable implication: a wealthy man; a man of strong character, of unbridled appetites. It can also signify possession of the most typical or desirable masculine qualities: to take one's punishment like a man.Male emphasizes the physical or sexual characteristics of a man; it may also refer to an animal or plant: a male in his prime; two males and three females in the pack; a male of the genus Ilex. In scientific and statistical use, male is the neutral contrastive term to female : 104 females to every 100 males; Among birds, the male is often more colorful than the female.Gentleman, once used only of men of high social rank, now also specifies a man of courtesy and consideration: a real gentleman; to behave like a gentleman.Gentleman is also used as a polite term of reference ( This gentleman is waiting for a table ) or, only in the plural, of address ( Are we ready to begin, gentlemen? ). See also manly, male.

Usage note

The use of man1 to mean “human being,” both alone and in compounds such as mankind, has met with objection in recent years, and the use is declining. The objection is based on the idea that man is most commonly used as an exclusive, sex-marked noun meaning “male human being.” Critics of the use of man as a generic maintain that it is sometimes ambiguous when the wider sense is intended ( Man has built magnificent civilizations in the desert ), but more often flatly discriminatory in that it slights or ignores the membership of women in the human race: The man in the street wants peace, not war. Although some editors and writers reject or disregard these objections to man as a generic, many now choose instead to use such terms as human being ( s ), human race, humankind, people, or, when called for by style or context, women and men or men and women. See also -man, -person, -woman.

sort out the men from the boysorseparate the men from the boysto separate the experienced from the inexperienced

to a man

unanimously

without exceptionthey were slaughtered to a man

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interjection

informalan exclamation or expletive, often indicating surprise or pleasure

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verbmans, manningormanned(tr)

to provide with sufficient people for operation, defence, etcto man the phones

to take one's place at or near in readiness for action

falconryto induce (a hawk or falcon) to endure the presence of and handling by man, esp strangers

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Derived Formsmanless, adjective

Word Origin

Old English mann; related to Old Frisian man, Old High German man, Dutch man, Icelandic mathr

usage

The use of man to mean human beings in general is often considered sexist. Gender-neutral alternatives include human beings, people and humankind . The verb to man can also often be replaced by to staff, to operate and related words

Man1

nounthe Man(sometimes not capital)US

Black slanga White man or White men collectively, esp when in authority, in the police, or held in contempt

slanga drug peddler

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Man2

noun

Isle of Manan island in the British Isles, in the Irish Sea between Cumbria and Northern Ireland: a UK Crown Dependency (but not part of the United Kingdom), with its own ancient parliament, the Court of Tynwald; a dependency of Norway until 1266, when for a time it came under Scottish rule; its own language, Manx, became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived to some extent. Capital: Douglas. Pop: 86 159 (2013 est). Area: 588 sq km (227 sq miles)

Plural men (German Männer) shows effects of i-mutation. Sometimes connected to root *men- "to think" (see mind), which would make the ground sense of man "one who has intelligence," but not all linguists accept this. Liberman, for instance, writes, "Most probably man 'human being' is a secularized divine name" from Mannus [cf. Tacitus, "Germania," chap. 2], "believed to be the progenitor of the human race."

So I am as he that seythe, `Come hyddr John, my man.' [1473]

Sense of "adult male" is late (c.1000); Old English used wer and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late 13c. and was replaced by man. Universal sense of the word remains in mankind and manslaughter. Similarly, Latin had homo "human being" and vir "adult male human being," but they merged in Vulgar Latin, with homo extended to both senses. A like evolution took place in Slavic languages, and in some of them the word has narrowed to mean "husband." PIE had two stems: *uiHro "freeman" (cf. Sanskrit vira-, Lithuanian vyras, Latin vir, Old Irish fer, Gothic wair) and *hner "man," a title more of honor than *uiHro (cf. Sanskrit nar-, Armenian ayr, Welsh ner, Greek aner).

Man also was in Old English as an indefinite pronoun, "one, people, they." The chess pieces so called from c.1400. As an interjection of surprise or emphasis, first recorded c.1400, but especially popular from early 20c. Man-about-town is from 1734; the Man "the boss" is from 1918. To be man or mouse "be brave or be timid" is from 1540s. Men's Liberation first attested 1970.

man

v.

Old English mannian "to furnish (a fort, ship, etc.) with a company of men," from man (n.). Meaning "to take up a designated position on a ship" is first recorded 1690s. Meaning "behave like a man, act with courage" is from c.1400. To man (something) out is from 1660s. Related: Manned; manning.